Lebanon Regains Voting Rights at UN

The United Nations (UN) announced Monday, that Lebanon has regained its full voting rights in the general assembly after paying all arrears to the international organization.

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, "Lebanon has just made a payment. With this payment, Lebanon's voting rights have been fully restored,"

The small Mediterranean nation paid $ 1, 310, 466, according to a diplomatic source.

This is the first time that Lebanon missed the payment of its UN membership fee.

It is worth mentioning that, last Friday, Dujarric announced that Lebanon had lost its vote, along with Venezuela, Central African Republic, Gambia, Lesotho, Tonga and Yemen.

In return, the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expats expressed discontent over the UN announcement and said in a statement that “on its part, Lebanon fulfilled all its duties within the legal deadline, and conducted reviews more than once with the relevant sides.”

The ministry considered that “regardless of who is responsible, Lebanon is affected, by this decision, at its state reputation, hoping that the issue will be solved as soon as possible.”

Since last October, Lebanon is facing an acute political crisis with the continuous failure of politicians to form a government that would calm protests sweeping the country.

Though the political elite has named an ex-education minister Hassan Diab as its next prime minister, with the initial support of the Iran-backed Hizbollah paramilitary group, he hasn’t got so far the approval or support of Sunni block led by ex-PM Saad Al-Hariri.